Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Krista Contreras and her wife Jami Contreras of Oak Park are devastated after facing discrimination they never saw coming: The pediatrician they had handpicked to treat their newborn daughter changed her mind. Mandi Wright/DFP

Four female journalists filed suit against the Detroit Free Press in federal court Friday, alleging the newspaper has underpaid them for years because they are women and that men are paid more than women in almost every employee category of the newsroom.

The lawsuit, which was filed by veteran labor and civil rights attorney Deborah Gordon, is based on a study by the newspaper union that analyzed payroll data for male and female employees at the Free Press, and claimed significant salary disparities between genders. The union study was published in the spring of 2017 and relied on salary figures from 2013-15.

Gordon said the Free Press and its parent company, Gannett, which is also named as a defendant, have been aware of the data and knew that the union was looking into gender pay issues for more than a year.

“The Detroit Free Press — which has a longstanding commitment to supporting equal employment opportunities for all employees — believes the claims asserted have no merit,” said Peter Bhatia, editor and vice president, who recently assumed the newspaper's top leadership position.

The lawsuit was filed under the Equal Pay Act, a 1963 federal employment law that requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. It also alleges violations of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, a state law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace.

The lawsuit is seeking unspecified punitive damages and corrective action that would raise salary levels for women so that they make what their similarly situated male counterparts do. The lawsuit also seeks to restore the wages that the plaintiffs allege they were cheated out of during the three years covered by the study.

The plaintiffs are:

Kathleen Galligan, a photographer who has been at the Detroit Free Press since 2002.

Mary Schroeder, a photographer and editor with the Free Press since 1979.

Rose Ann McKean, a photographer and designer at the Free Press since 1981.